Modern Mall Could Be a Temple

The first plenary speaker at the annual Calvin Worship Sympoisum on Friday likened modern shopping malls to secular models of a temple, or a holy place where people worship.

The speaker was Jamie A.K. Smith, a Calvin College philosopher who challenged worship leaders "to raise the stakes" in the work that they do in their churches across the country and abroad. They are competing for people's love and loyalty with strong secular influences and institutions.

"We clothe ourselves in Christ by letting the word of Christ dwell in us richly," said Smith. "Every practice of worship assumes a model of what human beings are, what they love and what they desire. What defines us helps to define the ways in which we worship. And what defines us is love."

The ecumenical worship conference brought together a wide audience of pastors, worship leaders and planners, artists, musicians, scholars, students, and others interested worship.

People came from around the world to gather for a time of fellowship, worship, and learning, seeking to deepen and integrate all aspects of worship, develop their gifts, encourage each other, and renew their commitment to the full ministry of the church. The symposium began Thursday and finished with the worship service on Saturday. For more information, visit Symposium.

The symposium is sponsored by the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship and the Center for Excellence in Preaching.

In his kick-off presentation, Smith used the shopping mall as an example of a secular idol that contains and presents messages that many people may not even realize. First off, he said, many malls are like cathedrals – large, open spaces with twisting hallways and chapels along the way that are stores. People go there to walk around, suffused by a sense of the largeness and even protective qualities of the mall. They are sealed in a timeless space.

"We need to be able to read the practices of our culture. What vision of the kingdom is implicit in secular practices? What for you is the good life?" he asked.

The function of the mall is to move us to want what we don’t have and often can’t afford. "Going to the mall is an example of taking part in a secular liturgy that has its own gospel and alternate story of who we are and what we ought to love."

The gospel of consumerism, he said, wants us to forget about things like justice and finding ways to make life easier and more fulfilling for the less fortunate.

With this model of secular liturgy in mind, worship leaders ought to see that what they can offer is "a counter formation . . . Practices of Christian worship recalibrate our love for God’s Kingdom."

In a worship setting, people are able to be bathed and absorbed in the story of God. "Christian practice runs counter to the mall gospel. The mall never offers genuine hope. It doesn’t remind of us of our brokenness with the message of Good News. The mall doesn’t tell us that we’ve got what it takes."

Worship leaders have the significant task of forming liturgies that inform and teach at a deep level about “how the Spirit of God transforms us. It lets us know how we are transformed by the grace of God,” said Smith.

Worship leaders need to realize how intensely they are competing with secular liturgical worldviews when people attend services in their churches, said Smith, professor of philosophy at Calvin College, and author of Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Baker Academic, 2009).

Smith spoke in the chapel on the Calvin Campus.

Without even realizing it, people's hearts are caught by false gods of sports, shopping, making money, or other secular pursuits. They may not even realize that secular virtues rule them at the core of their hearts, even if they attend church regularly.

Worship leaders should reflect on the profound significance of what they do. They offer in liturgy, ritual and words an antidote to today’s largely consumer-driven culture.

"We are what we love, and that carries with it some implicit notions of what it means to be flourishing. The heart (and not the human intellect) is the fulcrum of our desires," said Smith.

The second plenary session was on Saturday morning and provided worship perspectives from around the world. Titled "Just Worship," it featured Ruth Padilla De Borst, a Christian Reformed World Missions missionary who currently is presiding over the Latin American Theological Fraternity.

Also speaking were Mary Mikhael, president of the Near East School of Theology, Beirut, Lebanon, the only English-language seminary in the Middle East, and Rev. Jerry Pillay, who also serves as pastor of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Benono, South Africa, and moderator of the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa. The plenary panel was moderated by Scott Hoezee, director of Calvin's Center for Excellence in Preaching.